Anisotropic and magnetic properties in non-metal and non-radical organic aggregates of tri-substituted phenyl derivatives

Abstract

A new series of tri-substituted phenyl derivatives containing an aromatic imine unit and biphenyl ester possessing various numbers of carbon atoms at the terminal alkoxy chain, OC_nH_2n+1 (n = 7–12), along with a lateral o-ethoxy substituent have been successfully prepared and characterised by CHN microanalysis along with spectroscopic techniques (FTIR, ¹H- and ¹³C-NMR). The texture observation under polarized light revealed that all the soft condensed materials exhibited an enantiotropic nematic (N) phase. The current studies have shown that the mesomorphic behaviour is greatly influenced by the length of the alkoxy chains wherein the thermal stability of a tri-substituted phenyl derivative will decrease if the terminal alkoxy chain is increased from n = 7 to 12. For the first time, these materials which do not possess any magnetic species in their structure, demonstrate magnetic interaction through naked eye observation as well as quantitative measurement using a SQUID magnetometer.